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About us

The Football Foundation is the UK’s largest sports’ charity. Funded by the Premier League, The Football Association and the Government, the Foundation directs £30m every year into grassroots sport.

The Foundation receives money from the very top of the professional game and also from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport through Sport England. It then uses this money to leverage even more partnership funding, to deliver a programme of new and improved community sports facilities in towns and cities across the country.

Our mission is to improve facilities, create opportunities and build communities throughout England.

Impact

Featured pages

Where our money goesSince 2000, the Football Foundation has awarded grants towards projects worth over £1.3bn to help create new grass roots facilities around the country. Here you will be able to see what exactly has been via Football Foundation support both nationally and in your local area.

The Impact of our Facility grantsHundreds of thousands of people play football at Foundation-funded facilities each week. Find out more details on how many people are playing at Foundation facilities in this section.

News

Latest news

Rt Hon. David Davis MP pitches in to unveil upgrades for Holme Rovers FCRt Hon. David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, returned to the home of Holme Rovers FC to officially open their upgraded changing pavilion recently (Saturday 19 May). Their improved facility was made possible thanks to investment from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation. The club has also been able to purchase state-of-the-art ground maintenance equipment thanks to the funding.

World Cup Pitches Come To Salford Primary SchoolsSchoolchildren and football fans in Greater Manchester will now benefit from a safe and enjoyable place to participate in grassroots football, following the opening of two new all-weather pitches for St Joseph the Worker RC Primary School and Moorfield Community Primary School yesterday (Thursday 17 May).

In this section

Information for Media

Latest press releases

Rt Hon. David Davis MP pitches in to unveil upgrades for Holme Rovers FCRt Hon. David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, returned to the home of Holme Rovers FC to officially open their upgraded changing pavilion recently (Saturday 19 May). Their improved facility was made possible thanks to investment from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation. The club has also been able to purchase state-of-the-art ground maintenance equipment thanks to the funding.

World Cup Pitches Come To Salford Primary SchoolsSchoolchildren and football fans in Greater Manchester will now benefit from a safe and enjoyable place to participate in grassroots football, following the opening of two new all-weather pitches for St Joseph the Worker RC Primary School and Moorfield Community Primary School yesterday (Thursday 17 May).

Top Corner

Top Corner is the official e-newsletter from the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity. Each issue of Top Corner is packed with news and features from the grassroots of the game that we love.

Annual Review +

Annual Review + has been designed to bring to life the case studies of the Annual Review, so you can learn more about how the Foundation's funding is helping projects all over the country through video and photos.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Results show the impact of our grant investment during the 2013/14 season across all schemes, as well as highlighting areas in which there has been significant improvement year on year.

Free Toolkit to help you publicise your facility and fill those slots!

Have you got free slots at your sports site that you want to fill? Do you want to reach local businesses, schools or the general public and tell them about opportunities to hire out your pitches or facilities?

Then help is at hand with our free new resource.

Read our Marketing and PR Toolkit to learn some tips on how to publicise your facility and spread the word to potential customers about opportunities to hire it.

This user-friendly guide introduces some simple marketing techniques but makes them relevant for people who run community sports facilities. We have also cut out the jargon and translated the marketing methods into layman’s terms. But best of all it’s completely free!

Whether it is producing posters, press releases, arranging events, using Twitter, learning more about marketing, or even developing a website, our toolkit covers it.

Search Results

Sustainability Toolkit

Sustainability is a word you probably hear a lot when it comes to planning, managing and delivering projects and services but you may not know how to achieve it or indeed, what it actually means in real terms.

This guide has been designed to provide an introduction to some of the key areas to consider when planning the longer term sustainability of a project or organisation.

The information is aimed at grassroots clubs and voluntary sector organisations that may be coming to the end of a period of grant funding and are approaching sustainability for the first time, or are looking for some additional tips and advice for planning the future of projects, services and the wider organisation.

This guide will help you start developing a sustainability plan by introducing a number of different topics to consider, along with additional resources to allow you to follow up in more detail.

The layout allows you to pick and choose which topics you feel are most relevant and therefore you can jump around from topic to topic picking out the information you feel is most helpful to your project and organisation.

Technical guidance

We have published five technical guidance sheets that offer you step by step advice on planning your project and give detail minimum specifications on various aspects of facilities. It is essential that your project complies with these guidance sheets.

For further assistance on the technical aspects of your application, please contact the appropriate FA Regional Facilities & Investment Manager or the relevant Technical Project Manager.

3. Changing Accommodation

Further resources

Selecting the Right Artificial Surface [pdf / 1.40MB]This guidance and policy statement for selecting the appropriate artificial sport surface has been jointly developed by the national governing bodies of Hockey, Football, Rugby Union and Rugby League in conjunction with the Football Foundation and Sport England.

Research shows benefits to UK economy of Foundation’s investment into grassroots infrastructure

Since 2000, the Foundation has awarded 1,664 facility grants worth £320m towards developing new pitches and changing pavilions. We have often highlighted how this investment improves the quality of experience enjoyed by people at the grassroots and helps to increase participation.

Now a new report commissioned by the Foundation and carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) has found that investing into the country’s grassroots infrastructure also delivers major benefits to the UK economy, in terms of growing gross domestic product (GDP) and job creation. In particular, the report highlights that for every pound of Foundation investment into grassroots facilities, £7.73 worth of economic output is generated via partnership funding and the subsequent multiplier effects.